2020 Trends – We Have a Result

I live in Sweden, and that comes with both pros and cons. This time of the year my Saturday evenings are ruined for weeks on end, as the rest of the family hog the TV to watch the now serial Eurovision Song Contest. At the end of the show’s seasonal run, the same announcement has been made for decades: “Sweden, we have a result.” Nevertheless, this is when things get interesting — this is when the votes are counted, and we get see how things stack up.

It’s been over a month now since the 2020 trends webinar, titled “2020 Data & BI Trends: Analytics Alone Is No Longer Enough.” Thanks to all of you who listened. And, if you didn’t — maybe you were too busy watching the Eurovision Song Contest — the recording is available. As the dust settles, it’s time to crunch the feedback and numbers.

We have a result. First, we can establish that this has been one of the most popular Qlik webinar to date. Registered attendees go into the tens of thousands. I used to do trends webinars for a major industry analyst firm but the numbers never came close. The platform, resources and muscle that the Qlik team provides is on a different scale, and I’m very honored to stand on their shoulders.

Webinar Results

But, over to you now. How did you rank the importance of various trends? It took me by surprise:

What Trend is most relevant to you?

%

Graph analytics and associative technology surpasses SQL.

15%

The emergence of Data Literacy as a service.

14%

“Shazam” for data: Insights before the dashboard.

12%

DataOps plus self-service is the new agile.

11%

Big data is just data. Next up? Wide data.

11%

Becoming a real-time enterprise is no longer optional.

11%

Active metadata catalogs are the connective tissue for data.

9%

Ethics and responsible computing are now critical.

7%

Multifaceted interactions will move us beyond search.

5%

Independence vs. stack: The sequel.

5%

The spread was fairly even, indicating that you found many of the trends to be relevant. Pundits have said that we’re entering the era of the graph — and, of course, the Qlik community is interested in associative technologies — but I didn’t think that that trend would take the number one spot. Data literacy as a service also jostles at the top. This delights me, as Qlik has recently launched an offering in this area. “Shazam” for data is a trend that I think is huge, and many of you seem to agree.

We also conducted a survey as part of the webinar, asking attendees what topics and trends they’d like to hear more about. We can split the responses we received between the pragmatic and the aspirational/thought provoking. Those in the pragmatic camp would like to know more about best practices vis-à-vis the topics focused on in the trends webinar. For example, how does one go about realizing DataOps while also driving self-service? Throughout the year, we’ll try to follow up on some of the webinar’s trends with more in-depth information.

Those in the aspirational group also gave me quite a bit of food for thought. Examples from the survey include:

  • Machine-learning as a service
  • Validating algorithms so that their output is correct, accurate and reflective of the real world
  • End-use behavior and learning
  • Building/structuring the flow of information, so that insights, instead of analysis, is delivered to non-analytics users

All these areas are both deeply technical and human. How users behave is still under-researched, as is analytics governance, which will gain importance alongside data governance. However, with more regulations coming into the market, our need to understand these areas will only grow.

As you can see, the webinar attendees have given me a lot to think about — as they say in Eurovision Song Contest, douze points (the highest score)!

To learn more about augmented intelligence/analytics, tune into an upcoming Qlik webinar, to be held May 20, titled “'Shazam!' for Your Data: Augmented Analytics for Today’s Business User."

Read the latest blog post by @Dansommer where he analyzes the most relevant trends for attendees of @Qlik's webinar on 2020 #analytics and #BI trends

 

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